


Feels Like Grace

by queen_scribbles



Category: Pathfinder: Kingmaker (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Mutual Pining, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 11:35:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18777484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queen_scribbles/pseuds/queen_scribbles
Summary: It's always good to have friends when things get hard





	Feels Like Grace

**Author's Note:**

> Soooo I started playing PfKm recently, and my CG Halfling Cleric fell pretty hard for Tristian. :D Took a while to get fic of of them, but trust an emotional moment like this one to do the trick. Ironically, the first fic for my chipper, cheerful, happy-go-lucky daughter was sparked by a moment where she’s very much... not any of those things. Oops. It’s character-building? ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

 

It only took a blink, and still caught her off-guard even though she knew it was coming. One second Jasiri was eyeing the young man with alarm as he coughed up blood, and trying to convince his friends to step away because she _knew_ what came next, and then he was gone. A smear of blood and bone on the ground as an owlbear lunged forward, its claws deflecting off her shield.

Jas forced herself not to dwell on it, even as one boot skidded in the blood that slicked the rocks, to focus on protecting the innocents she _could_ rather than mourning the one she _hadn’t_. She and Valerie vied to keep the beast’s attention, catching and absorbing blows with their shields and armor. Despite this, Jas heard Amiri grunt in pain once or twice, followed immediately by a taunting bellow of laughter each time, and Tristian dodged a swipe so narrowly the claws snagged on his robes. Worried as she was about her friends, her main goal had to be keeping the remaining peasants safe, a goal that involved throwing herself between them and the owlbear multiple times.

When it was finally done, the owlbear lying dead atop the remains of its... host, Jas turned to the unfortunate youth’s friends. “Are you alright?”

They stumbled back, away from her, even though blood dripped down one’s arm from a bite, muttering about the land being cursed. About _her_ being cursed.

It was the same rumor that had persisted for months, but it had them too afraid to let her heal them. They wouldn’t even look at her. She did convince them to stay, promising to do everything in her power( _and then some_ , she added mentally, fingers clutching her holy symbol) to protect her people. It was disheartening all the same that their acceptance came in the form of a pessimistic _“We’re doomed no matter where we go, may as well die here.”_

Jas watched them flee, heart breaking for what her people suffered and wanting to beat the ever-loving snot out of whoever was behind it. She shucked her gauntlets and wiped sweat off her forehead as she watched Amiri and Ekun set about skinning the owlbear. There was no point letting all that leather and meat go to waste. _Desna, please let us solve this quickly..._ She hated to see people suffering, and not being able to help was even more frustrating.

Her hand came away sticky and she frowned. The back was streaked crimson. That wasn’t her blood, and it wasn’t the owlbear’s; she’d had her shield up when Amiri finished the beast off. But that meant....

Jas’ stomach churned, and she hesitantly touched her hair. Something slick and stringy clung to her fingers when she pulled away. Reality receded as she searched desperately for an alternate explanation and found none. _No. nonono._

“Are you alright?” Valerie’s question was kindly meant, but it set the world in motion again.

Including the bile climbing Jas’ throat. Rather than answer Valerie’s well-intentioned query, she spun on one heel and bolted away from her friends. Ignoring the cries of  _‘Jas?’_ behind her, she crashed through the bushes until she was what felt like a safe distance away. Only then did she drop to her knees and empty her stomach into a blessedly convenient crevice. _I had... he was..._ A fresh wave of nausea rose but Jas didn’t have anything more to give. _No wonder they didn’t want to look at me._ She had bits of their friend _in her hair_.

She dry-heaved a couple more times off the thought, then sat back, wiping her mouth with one hand. Her gaze landed on a small stream as she caught her breath and Jas didn’t even hesitate before scrambling toward it. She plunged her head in, deep as she could, not bothering to undo her hair first but digging at the crown-like braid with impatient fingers. She had to get it _off_ \--

“Jasiri?”

She sat up, water streaming down her face and armor. “Tristian? What...?”

“I...” He coughed and ducked his head so his hood hid his face. “We were worried when you ran off. Are... Are you alright?”

“Alright?” Jas parroted with an almost hysterical laugh. “I’m supposed to _protect_ them and he died _so scared_ and I have pieces of him ** _in my hair_ ,** Tristian.” She sliced one hand through the water’s surface, sending a glittering spray up into the sunset light. “Maybe I am cursed...”

“ _ **No**_ ,” Tristian said emphatically. He sat on the ground, heedless of dirt and mud, to put them as close to eye level as possible. “You aren’t. This is someone’s doing, Jasiri. And whether it is simply the land they wish to vilify, or a grudge against you for some reason I can’t comprehend”--that made her smile, just a little, which made him smile--“we will find them and put a stop to it. We will find a way to help your people,” he promised, eyes glinting with the fervency of his words.

“I know we will,” Jasiri nodded, curling one hand around Desna’s butterfly. The holy symbol was heavy in her grasp. “And it means a lot that you care so much, but...” she tried to smile, wasn’t sure she succeeded. “For the time being, I still have bits of _person_ in my hair.”

“Well...” Tristian hesitated, as if choosing his words carefully. “It will take Amiri and Ekun a couple hours at least to skin the owlbear. And Valerie and Jubilost were discussing the merits of setting camp nearby. It’s too late to get much traveling done, they said.”

“They’re right,” Jas said softly. It was already late afternoon, by the time the owlbear was fully skinned it would be roughly dusk. “What’s your point?”

“We will be here long enough, either way, that if you want...” he paused, face coloring slightly as he traced the edges of _his_ holy symbol with graceful fingers.  “If you would like, I could help you wash it out.”

Her eyebrows arched toward her hairline and something warm hummed in her chest. “Really?”

Tristian nodded. “If you like.”

“Help would be nice,” she said finally, after a long minute of internal wrestling over the purity of her motives and whether that mattered. _He’s just being nice._ “If you really don’t mind? You’ll probably get wet.”

“Not at all,” he assured her. “The outer mantle needs mending anyway.” He brushed his fingers over the gashes through the blue fabric.

 _Thank Desna and Sarenrae both you dodged in time,_ Jas couldn’t help thinking as she stared at the placement of the rips. They ran the _whole width_ of his chest. “If we do set camp for the night, I can fix that for you,” she offered as she started to loosen the buckles on her armor. Washing her hair would be significantly easier without it.

“I wouldn’t want to be trouble,” he demurred, pushing back his hood and slipping off the damaged mantle.

“It’s no trouble, Tristian,” Jas promised, shucking the armor. “Just straight lines. Shouldn’t even take me an hour to do it _well._ I can take care of it during my watch.”

“If you’re certain,” Tristian said slowly, rolling up the sleeves of the lighter weight robe he still wore.

“I am.” She reached up and started uncoiling the tail of her braid from its bun. Her fingers deftly unwove the strands, then started loosening the part that circled her head, still damp from her impromptu plunge a few minutes earlier. Just letting it down felt _glorious_ ; she’d had it up for days worth of traveling, and it was kinked almost to the point of being curly with sweat. Washing it was going to feel _amazing_. Her good mood was damped significantly when she pulled another piece of gore from her hair, but she managed to swallow the nausea this time. 

As the last of her hair came free, Jas glanced over and caught Tristian staring at her, his head cocked ever so slightly.”What?”

“It’s... so long,” he said softly. A shy smile followed. “I’ve never seen it down...”

She started to protest--they’d been traveling together for _months_ , after all, surely _somewhere_ in there he’d seen her hair down--but with a moment’s pause had to admit he was right. Even though the encircling braid was a favorite, to the point she could plait it without looking(and had), it was time-consuming to do. Especially if you did it well. So when Jas did it--which was all the time--she tended to leave it up for days, until it was too frizzy and sad to ignore, then fix it in the privacy of her tent. So it wasn’t unreasonable that, despite the length of their.... friendship, Tristian had never seen her hair _down_.

“Well, now you have,” she said cheerfully, shaking her head a little to ensure it was all free. She pulled on one kinked lock, stretching it to its true length; almost a full extension of her arm. “It’s even longer when I don’t let it get so gross.”

“That’s not how I would describe it,” Tristian protested swiftly, then blushed and looked down at his knees.

“Tristian, I haven’t washed it in four days,” Jas laughed. “We’ve been traveling and fighting... It’s sweaty and dirty and gross and it’s okay to acknowledge that.”

“I still think it’s pretty,” he mumbled, more to his lap than her.

 _I think you’re biased._  Jas flushed and dug in her pack for something to scoop water rather than dwell on where that thought came from or risk meeting his eyes. “Thank you, but it’ll look even better once it’s clean.” One hand curled around a shallow wooden bowl, and she tugged it out to hand to the priest before sitting down with her back to he stream. She leaned back on her hands until her hair trailed in the water, then raised an eyebrow at Tristian. “Ready when you are.”

Tristian absently rubbed his thumb over the smooth wood for a moment before he moved closer and dipped the bowl in the stream. He rested one hand against her forehead, fingers curved to shield her eyes from the flow of water as he poured it over her head. It was cold enough Jas caught a sharp breath, toes curling in her boots as a shiver corkscrewed down her spine.

“Sorry,” Tristian said softly.

“No, it’s fine, just caught me off-guard,” she assured, blinking as a droplet escaped around his hand to run right by the corner of her eye. “I wasn’t paying attention to how cold it was before.”

“Mm.” He accepted the explanation with a quiet hum and the two of them lapsed into silence through the next few bowlfuls, aside from a couple happy sighs Jas couldn’t completely stifle. She’d been right; it felt amazing to even just rinse the sweat and dirt of travel--not to mention any lingering gore--out of her hair. And the quiet reassuring presence of a... a friend felt like a small measure of grace she desperately needed right now.

And then, once her hair was thoroughly soaked, Tristian started running his fingers through it. Slowly, at first. Hesitantly. Jas wasn’t sure whether that was due to not wanting to pull any knots, or uncertainty how she would receive the gesture. She was just on the verge of humming appreciatively, or outright saying something about how _nice_ that felt when Tristian broke the silence.

“I am sorry we couldn’t save him,” he said softly. “I know how much it weighs on you that we’ve yet to find the source of these... seeds, that each loss adds to your burden. I am certain you’ll find a way to fix thing, but in the meantime... we are here for you, Jasiri.”

Desna help her, from this angle, with how the sun’s light hit and such raw compassion in his eyes, he really did look like an angel. An angel she very much wanted to kiss. And it would be so easy, with how they were sitting... _Don’t you dare, Jas. You’re not there yet and you know it_. She took a deep--slightly unsteady--breath. “Thank you. I’m glad someone still has faith in my ability to fix this; my people are of a very different mind.”

Tristian smiled, returning his hand to her forehead as he poured one last bowl of water over her hair. “They don’t know you like.... like we do. Your determination, your heart...” He lifted one hand to tuck back hair that had drifted into his face, then met her gaze. “Your courage. If they did, they would harbor no such doubts.”

Jas smiled back, blinking away water droplets that clung to her eyelashes, that warmth once again humming in her chest. “Again, thank you. It means a lot, having you with me.” Heat rushed to her face, and she hurried to clarify, “All... all of you, I mean. Though I do appreciate you, specifically, as well. You’re so much better at healing than I am, and I definitely need that. And I just like talking to you and-” _Shut **up,** Jas._ She leaned forward with a mortified groan, burying her face in her hands as her hair clung to and soaked the back of her shirt.

“Jasiri.” There was a warm smile in his voice even if she was too embarrassed to actually look at him, and he rested one hand on her shoulder. “I like talking to you, too.”

She gave a self-deprecating snort as she sat straight and wrung the excess water from her hair. “Miracles do still happen,” she deadpanned, hastily weaving the wet strands into a sloppy braid, which she then coiled into a loose bun to keep it from further saturating her clothes. She bit her lip, hesitating briefly, before,  “Tristian?”

“Yes?” He looked up from drying the bowl on a clean patch of his robes.

“Thank you, very much, for the assistance and the encouragement.” Jas took the bowl when he offered it and stowed it in her pack once more. “Both helped a great deal.”

Tristian nodded as he rolled down his sleeves and pulled his hood back up. “I’m glad.”

They lingered, eyes locked, caught in a silence both wanted to break but somehow couldn’t, until Jas finally cleared her throat. “We... we should probably rejoin the others,” she said, barely more than a reluctant mumble as she shouldered her pack, “before Valerie worries we were eaten by another owlbear or a wyvern or something and comes looking.”

He laughed and pushed to his feet. “I feel in that circumstance it would more likely be Amiri, seeking to visit vengeance on the unfortunate beast.”

“Unfortunate?” she snorted as she gathered up her armor. Even if her shirt hadn’t gotten wet, there was no point in putting it back on if they were just going to make camp soon.

“If it has to tangle with Amiri,” Tristian said with a smile, collecting the damaged mantle before offering to help carry her armor.

Jas conceded the point and accepted the offer, her spirits significantly lighter as they headed back to their friends. It was almost funny how fast the right person could make things better.

Thank Desna she had him.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline wise, this is after figuring out about the monster seeds (*shudder*) and the conversation with Tristian where Jas got the line about him being used to people appreciating him for his knowledge, not his ignorance BUT before going to the goblin fort/”Full of sunshine”. A gloriously perfect point for pining fic, in other words. :3 Title is from the Daughtry song “Baptized”, bc I couldn’t get that imagery out of my head while writing. (PS: no spoilers, please, I only just got Varnhold Vanishing added to my quest log.)


End file.
